Logistics Boost: Valls Hosts First Meeting of BCL's Lleida-Tarragona Group
Over 60 representatives from companies and institutions in Tarragona, Lleida, and Aragon meet to strengthen Catalonia's logistics leadership.
By Jordi Serra Martínez
••4 min read
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Generic image of a logistics hub with containers and trucks.
The Lleida-Tarragona Logistics Working Group of the Barcelona – Catalunya Logistics Centre (BCL) association held its first working meeting in Valls, with over 60 representatives attending.
The gathering, held at the facilities of the Casteller Museum of Valls, brought together more than 60 representatives from logistics and industrial sector companies, economic entities, and institutions from the provinces of Tarragona and Lleida, as well as the Aragon region. The main objective is to define territorial goals to integrate into the Logistics Agenda 2030 and reinforce Catalan leadership in peninsular logistics.
This platform, driven by Port Tarragona and already comprising over 20 initial companies and institutions, seeks to create territorial synergies to boost the logistics and industrial development of both regions. The initiative aims to address the high demand for logistics activity concentrated in Barcelona by deepening ties between Lleida, Tarragona, Terres de l’Ebre, and Aragon.
The meeting was welcomed by the mayor of Valls, Dolors Farré. The Director General of BCL, Santiago Bassols, presented the association's mission and objectives, while Santiago J. Castellà, president of BCL and Port of Tarragona, and Joan Basora, Head of External Relations at the Port Authority of Tarragona, detailed the Working Group's objectives and action plan. A round table discussion on the logistics challenges of the Tarragona-Lleida-Aragon axis also took place.
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"We are very well positioned globally, being at the center of the Europe-Mediterranean-Asia axis, but we need to strengthen this position with infrastructure and actors from across the country. And this is where the Lleida-Tarragona axis plays a key role."
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"It is historic that a BCL president is not from the Barcelona area. This has allowed us to give a very significant boost in extending BCL's actions to the entire country."
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"It's about filling a representation deficit for the logistics sector in the South and Ponent regions and leveraging the dialogue space created by this group to network, exchange knowledge, contribute ideas, and convey the sector's needs."
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"We are in an ideal moment, with high demand for logistics and transport spaces and services in Catalonia, which we can cover from Tarragona and Lleida, with new terminals and better infrastructure and road and rail connections. We have a great opportunity ahead that will allow us to create new value chains, strengthen our position as a key logistics node in the northeast of the peninsula, and increase our competitiveness."
The meeting served to outline the steps for creating a strategic document within the Logistics Agenda 2030, which will diagnose the current situation, identify logistics challenges, and include a monitoring system. This document will cover challenges and needs for the different nodes of Catalonia's logistics system, particularly the Tarragona-Lleida axis, encompassing road, rail, maritime, and air transport, as well as improvements in logistics platforms, urban logistics, human resources, innovation, and sustainability.
Alícia Casart, Director of Infrastructure Studies at the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona, presented the strategic lines of the Logistics Agenda 2030 for these territories, opening a period for contributions from the Working Group members.
Among the attendees were representatives from the chambers of commerce of Tarragona, Reus, Valls, and Tortosa, who discussed the need for investment in infrastructure such as the duplication of the N-420, improvements to the N-240, the connection between the A-27 and the AP-2, the Port's rail connections, and the conversion of the Tarragona-Lleida-Zaragoza line into a high-capacity freight rail corridor. Emphasis was also placed on the need for aid for decarbonization and energy transition.
Companies such as Ership, Noatum Tarragona, PTP Group, CEVA, HUPAC, Arola, Next Martime, the Federació Empresarial d’Autotransport de Tarragona (FEAT), Vall Company, SGS, Balanyà Eguia, Alcoridea, and Etecnic are also part of the group.
The association Barcelona-Catalunya Centre Logístic (BCL) works to consolidate Catalonia as the major logistics platform for Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, enhancing the sector's competitiveness through improved services and infrastructure, and promoting logistics as a key economic sector for Catalonia's growth and competitiveness.
